The present invention relates to speech recognition, and more particularly to systems and methods of performing speech recognition with barge-in.
Automated voice response systems have been implemented in many businesses allowing clients to get a wide variety of information from on-line voice prompt and user speech recognition devices. These systems allow a user to access information by moving through a hierarchical structure of options which are described to the user by voice prompts. Depending on the number of layers in the hierarchical system and the number of options for each position in the menu tree, the process can be very cumbersome. Use of such systems has been facilitated with the introduction of systems which allow for “barge-in”. “Barge-in” allows a user to interrupt the voice prompt and proceed directly to the user's choice. This is helpful for users who successively use a system and already know where they wish to be in the tree structure. However, these sorts of systems require a great deal of processing and memory in order to properly recognize the user speech and may affect the responsiveness, cost, and power consumption of the system. These factors, as well as many others, have prevented the use of speech recognition with barge-in in many electronic devices.
The present invention solves these and other problems with systems and methods of performing speech recognition with barge-in.